Parish Church Of St James

Anglican parish church, dating to 1866 and designed by Joseph Peacock of London, with a north aisle added in 1875 to his original design. The church is constructed of coursed rock-faced rubble with tiled roofs. It comprises a nave and aisles (each of four bays), a baptistry and double porches extending west, and an apsidally-ended chancel and sanctuary with flanking offices and porches. The aisles and nave have separate roofs; the aisles feature single, double and triple lancet windows and buttresses with deep set-offs. There are three-light windows to the west and a large roundel to the east. Lean-to west porches have a spherical clerestory window above; the distinctive west window consists of two lancets separated by a single buttress with emphatic weathering, topped with a roundel containing complex tracery. The chancel and sanctuary are deep, with a continuous set of high lancets; offices and porches are located north and south, with continuous lancets to the east. Oversized southeast and southwest corner pinnacles feature the date of foundation, along with the names of the architect and contractor, W Huddleston. The building has crested ridge tiles, wrought-iron finial crosses, and stone coping to all gables.

Inside, the arcades feature steeply profiled double-chamfered arches on circular-section piers and moulded capitals, with spandrels dramatically broken by cut-through mouchettes. The nave roof is canted with exposed common rafters and principals, while the aisles have crown post roofs. The east division of the aisles is marked by a tie beam with traceried spandrels and crown posts. The east end of the church is noticeably raised. Side arches to the chancel include a trumeau with a central roundel. The chancel roof is keeled and boarded, and the sanctuary lancets are framed by inner orders of shafts, with walls featuring incised patterning. A reredos, featuring an open central gabled canopy, is present. The floors are tiled. Fittings include a font with a stone bowl on clustered marble shafts and a polygonal wooden canopy, all executed in a vigorous High Victorian style. Later 19th-century chancel fittings and a pulpit feature open tracery frontals. Stained glass includes two windows by Lavers, Barraud and Westlake, dated 1892 and 1897; the sanctuary lancets by them depict scenes from the Life of Mary and Christ. Joseph Peacock was a significant High Victorian architect known for reacting against earlier academic medievalism and characterised by his wilful detailing and massing; St James, Derby, represents one of his best works outside London.